Microsoft's mobile challenge: creating a browser you can love

With the pending 2009 release of Internet Explorer Mobile 6, Microsoft is making a major change in its approach to the mobile Web. And it's about time, according to some.

The new browser isn't a secret but only recently has Microsoft begun releasing details, as well as an application emulator, to give a clearer picture of what users can expect. The company hasn't even released any public videos of the browser: only OEM partners willing to sign nondisclosure agreements can get them.

See screen images of what IE Mobile 6 has in store. 

IE Mobile 6 will be a major improvement over the limited browser currently available on devices powered by the Windows Mobile operating system, including the most recent version, 6.1. For the first time, as part of a future upgrade to the operating system, users will be able to display standard Web pages, including Adobe Flash content.

There's a lot riding on this, in light of Apple's success with the iPhone and its Safari Web browser in showing many U.S. users that mobile access to the Web can match desktop browser access. And there are plenty of mobile browser rivals.

"Microsoft is woefully behind in the mobile space," says Carl Howe, director of Anywhere Consumer Research at Yankee Group, a technology research firm. "They don't have a full-featured, standards-compliant browser currently on their Windows Mobile products, nor will they have one for another six months or so. Further, they don't have anything approaching a dominant market share in mobile, meaning that they don't have the marketplace control necessary to force the industry to adopt a non-standard [mobile] Internet Explorer."

But IE Mobile 6, not even in beta release, is already being criticized by some as supporting fewer Web standards than the latest desktop browser, Internet Explorer 7. And it requires some muscular hardware resources: 128MB of RAM, and a 400MHz processor, according to Microsoft. Nor will it be available as a separate product: the operating system on the handheld has to be reflashed to support the new browser, so Microsoft will partner with device makers and mobile operators to supply it.

The first release will be on phones with mobile operator China Mobile, in the People's Republic of China, sometime in 2009.

Technically, IE Mobile 6 combines elements of IE 6 and 7, and of IE 8 which is now in beta test. Microsoft product managers stress the new mobile browser puts a premium on making it easy for users to transact on the Web, not just view it: to successfully complete a range of tasks such as filling in a form, securely logging into a site, and transferring funds between bank accounts.

No code has been released publicly but in November Microsoft announced a package of emulator images, which developers can add to Visual Studio 2005 or 2008 to test applications, including IE Mobile 6, for Windows Mobile 6.1.4.

Here's what you can expect in the new mobile browser:

•  For the first time, a full HTML rendering engine, but it's based on the code from the older version of the desktop browser, IE 6, released in 2001.